Sheldon Keefe taking notice of the play of Sandin and Liljegren on the current road trip
Last night in Pittsburgh, none of the Leafs' top-4 defensemen were on the ice for a goal against. More importantly, Timothy Liljegren and Rasmus Sandin played career highs in minutes against a Penguins team that had won 5-straight games heading into last night. Sandin and Liljegren seized their opportunity last night and did not look out of place, even with the incredibly tough matchups they were tasked with.
"They're going to grow through this experience. Those guys today were excellent, maybe as good as they have been on this trip. And to do it on a back-to-back, against an opponent like this, there were some real challenging matchups for them," said Sheldon Keefe on how well Liljegren and Sandin were in 22 and 23 minutes, respectively.
It's amazing what can happen in a couple of weeks, as Keefe said in the middle of November that Sandin was struggling with his confidence, and they expected more out of him. Now he's playing top-4 minutes and doesn't look out of place at all. As a matter of fact, since Sandin and Liljegren have been paired together (not including last night's game), they have been driving play offensively, while being very sound in their own zone.
Including the game against Minnesota, when Liljegren and Sandin are on the ice, the Leafs have a 74% expected goals for, are out shooting opponents (39-22), out scoring (4-1), and are dominating in scoring chances (23-9). Without Jake Muzzin, TJ Brodie and Morgan Rielly, Liljegren and Sandin have seized the opportunity to grow and develop while taking on much larger roles in the Leafs' blueline.
Along with Keefe, Kyle Dubas must be equally thrilled with how his young defensemen have stepped up with $18.9M of defensemen out of the lineup right now.
| POLL | ||
NOVEMBRE 27 | 266 ANSWERS Sheldon Keefe taking notice of the play of Sandin and Liljegren on the current road trip Are Sandin and Liljegren ready for full-time gigs in the team's top-4? | ||
| Yes | 155 | 58.3 % |
| Not yet, but they will be soon | 102 | 38.3 % |
| No - they're nothing more than 3rd pair guys | 9 | 3.4 % |
| List of polls | ||
